Many Confused by Bailout
By Alan Stewart Carl | Related entries in Economy, MediaPulled from a Walter Shapiro column on Salon.com:
A Pew Research Center poll released Wednesday found that 43 percent of all voters admitted that they feel “confused” by the proposed plan to stabilize the financial markets. At the same time, voters grasp that something important is happening — 54 percent say, in response to another question, that they are paying “a lot” of attention to the bailout debate in Washington. Pollster Andy Kohut, the director of the Pew Research Center, said that it was virtually “unparalleled” to have this simultaneous level of interest and confusion in a policy debate.
I suppose it’s possible that the people not paying attention are the ones who are confused, but Kohut’s remarks seem to indicate otherwise. What these numbers apparently show is a keen interest in the issue but not much understanding of the details. And I have a theory why: our media and political establishment have become incapable of communicating complex ideas.
Sure, if you are the type to read high-quality news magazines/newspapers or do independent research on-line, you can find comprehensive information. But for the majority who get their news from TV, there’s not a lot of detailed information available. TV journalists would rather cover the blame game than the bailout plan’s details and politicians, when given screen time, are more likely to play partisan politics (a la Nancy Pelosi’s now infamous speech) than they are to communicate intellectually with the voters. Even President Bush’s primetime speech was more an attempt to rally support for the bailout than it was an attempt to provide us with comprehensive information (although he did try harder to explain the problem than have most TV journalists).
This is not an easy to understand problem – even for the most in-tune. And, frankly, I’m not convinced many Americans would sit down for, say, a two-hour NBC news special on the crisis and proposed solutions. But we could at least have less finger pointing and coverage of finger pointing and more discussion of details. That’s not asking a lot.
Unfortunately, it’s not going to happen. What is happening is that public opinion is waxing and waning based on what the stock market is doing. Those numbers are the kind of easy-to-graph info-bytes television news excels at presenting. After this week’s turmoil, I expect public support for the bailout to remain just high enough to give our elected officials the cover they need to pass a bill. But I wish our media was as skilled at conveying complex information as they are at juicing ratings. This is a moment in our history where a well-informed public would be useful.
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October 1st, 2008 at 12:08 pm
It would also be nice if our illustrious politicians would stop playing the blame game for scoring political points and get down to serious business. Both sides have a share in this, after the legislation is passed they can go off on each other but right now we need statesmanship.
October 1st, 2008 at 2:40 pm
The only place I’d quibble is where you say the media hasbecome incapable of communicating complex ideas. Academic media criticism has for decades pointed out that what passes as “news” shows a consistent and pronounced bias for sensationalism, fragmentation, and normalization(ending by suggesting one ought not to worry).
I think there could be a market for a newscast strongly motivated by critical thinking and committed to a long-term attempt to educate and inform by developing overarching themes and using the web to support viewer self-informing. This would obviously involve suggesting to viewers that whatever is being shown on the air in many cases simply scratches the surface. It would also involve a significant de-emphasis of the sorts of stuff that is know to attract superficial viewing (which, let’s face it, drives ratings).
And it would involve changes in editorial approach where the newscast would sometimes “take sides” instead of giving a token display of both sides of the story and hiding behind the notion that “we let our viewers decide.” This latter idea (we let viewers decide) is in fact solid, but in practice in can often be used as a cop-out and a shield. For example, how much airtime do you give to “both sides” on a story about whether chinese foot pads can remove body toxicity and improve your health?